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People Care

In BØL we have adopted permaculture - permanent culture - due to its broad-based and holistic approach with applications to all aspects of life. At the heart of permaculture design and practice lies a fundamental set of core values or ethics:

Earthcare – recognising that the Earth is the source of all life as well as our home which we are a part of, not apart from.

Peoplecare – supporting and helping each other to change to ways of living that are not harming ourselves or the planet, and to develop healthy societies.

Fairshare - utilising the Earth's limited resources in ways that are equitable and wise.

We realize that despite decades-long struggles by various movements, we have arrived at a historic moment beyond which a fundamental collapse in core functions of our current industrial-growth-society can no longer be avoided, due to exhaustion of our ecosystems. In such a situation Permaculture, Plan B suggests how we can equip ourselves to handle these gradually developing crashes, and how we may play a constructive role in the coming turbulent times of great collective stress. As an implication People Care has to enter the foreground, which up to now - justifiably so - has been occupied with housing and gardening. A further implication due to the inevitably arising conflicts is to seek to become of essential value to our local surrounding society in our projects and approaches.

Already now some initiatives from various countries has started building up what will hopefully become robust regional networks - bioregions - in order to have the people, the knowledge and the contacts ready for action, organized geographically according to what areas can supply themselves with all basic resources, in preparing for the environmental crises. Doing so, we will keep the central focus of permaculture: "The balanced, rational and effective analyses of resource circuits with the attached toolbox of practical advices of how to create permanently sustainable settlements. Being very practical, down-to-earth and based on ecologically scientific weighings of evidences." (Permaculture, Plan B)

As an illustrative example of how to maintain the human resource our Czech friends showed us how to exploit the fact that pragnent women and parents of small children are usually more sensitive to environmental influences on human, especially children's health. During this stage in life people will be more susceptible to the message of environmental awareness. This practice also demonstrates a sound permaculture principle: Let one element serve multiple purposes. And although it was never stated explicitly an important message stood out: If we cannot take care of the most vulnerable of our children, what then can we take care of?

In connecting our networks together - across borders and societies - we can extend in a synergistic manner our know-how with respect to managing natural as well as human resources. The Scandinavian countries and the Central and
Eastern European countries are examples of two regions with distinct and different (and some similar) historical experiences which can be complementary and especially useful for the times ahead of us. How to live under marginal climatic conditions, self-sufficiency, live cultures of small nations, how to deal with big neighbors, development of democracy and organizing society are obvious examples. To work on developing and strengthening groups and local societies and their networks should be a priority of our permaculture organizations.